I'm hard at work
with classes as well as
implementing Alexis' trade system right now and I
wanted to document some of the ways I've needed to change the process in order
to create the outcome I want.
The trade system
depends upon references of goods bound to specific commercial locations
(markets) where goods of that type are either produced or gathered from nearby,
noncommercial areas (outlying farms, smaller towns, shipped downriver, etc.). Following Alexis' suggestions, I plotted out
regions of influence for each city, ranging in size from 4ish hexes for the
smaller cities to 15 or 20 for the larger ones.
I initially used
Welshpiper's medieval settlements calculator to
determine how many cities I ought to have in regions of a given size and
population density, which lead to more cities than I had reasonable room to
place. I did what I could - and I think
the map has benefited from the density of locations in both the Southern
Kingdoms and Confederacy (I scaled back the city counts intentionally for Arein
because of its relatively young age (60 years)). Obviously, the more closely packed the cities
are, the fewer hexes each controls within a given area.
Each hex controlled
by a market might produce resources, based upon its hydrology, elevation, and
level of civilization. While I haven't
implemented Alexis' idea of infrastructure numbers yet, it is a future project. As a rule of thumb, I decided that any hex
more than two hexes away from the closest city was undeveloped and thus (for my
two heavily-treed areas) still jungle/forest.
Hexes only 40 miles (2 hexes) from the closest city were also
undeveloped, but if there was another city within 2 hexes from the are in
question, the hex is settled instead.
It may be helpful to take a gander at the
map I uploaded recently.
One of the early
difficulties I encountered with the random determination is that Alexis'
regions are based upon the kinds of terrain found in, say, Hexographer, rather
than rooted in any kind of elevation or topological scheme, which is how I
built my world. While I absolutely
understand the desire to be accessible, I had a little bit of work to do to
adjust it. My first approach was to
classify any hex adjacent to another hex with an elevation difference of 400 or
more counted as a hill (which graduated to mountain as soon as the hex's height
breached 2000' above sea level). This
gave me no hills because the elevation change was smoother than I had
anticipated. My second approach banded
hexes by color: hexes over 500' but under 2000' were hills, hexes over 2000'
were mountains, and hexes between sea level and 500' were flat, either plains
or scrublands (hexes between -50' and 0', found only at the coast, became
marshes). Alexis' plains designation
really applies to land used for large-scale farming, whereas scrubland does
not. Thus, hexes 1 hex or closer to a
city are plains, while those that I've ruled undeveloped are either scrub or
forest/jungle. Now, deciding between the
two choices was tricky. They are
entirely different vegetation systems, and it was important that I get the
resources from both. I still don't have
a satisfactory answer, but the answer I used had to do with distance from the
forest's center, something for which I had a rough location.
The biggest change I
needed to make was further differentiating the very generic labels of building
stone, cereals, fruits (which replace grapes, since I'm in a tropical
environment), gems, and vegetables.
My world's central
distinguishing characteristic is the differences in both outlook and material
culture between each of my societies.
Therefore, I need to be able to distinguish between the kinds of
resources available to each people, as well as what specific foods is grown to
determine diet and food culture. I have
a sedimentary ridge that separates the Confederacy and Southern Kingdoms, and
so I used that to distinguish between the kinds of stone found: south of the
ridge is sandstone, compressed sediment from the sea, while north of the ridge
is limestone because of the karst topology (a choice I made to provide
sinkholes to the area). Across the Sea
of Shadows to the south, I have granite mountains.
However, karst
topology includes important things like dolomite and gypsum, which I wanted to
produce as well, and this led me to the solution I employed for my other
reference specifications. I assigned
probabilities to each type and rolled a die: 1 dolomite, 2 gypsum, 3-4
limestone. The important thing is that I
get different numbers for each resource, scattered throughout the regions.
I then specified
different cereal categories, millet, rice, and wheat, fruit categories,
bananas, coconuts, mangos, and pineapples, gem categories, ornamental, fancy,
semiprecious, lesser precious, and greater precious, and vegetables, cassava,
cotton, edibles (tubers and the like), jute, palm oil, and soybeans. I determined these the same way, giving each
a probability and then rolling for each individual reference - I tried applying
a strict percentage on the overall reference to give me numbers, but the
results were too clean.
The last way I've
changed the references is adding a new one: warcraft, which governs the making
of arms and armor for a given culture.
The Tarluskani use a khanda while the Southerners use a longsword. While they are similar in many ways, the
techniques to use it are different, as are the concerns and problems when
forging it. This also lets me price
weapons and armor from different cultures like the exotic or commonplace items
they are, even though the skills involved are the same. I get my Warcraft value for each market from
the sum of the leathercraft, metalcraft, and woodcraft references, since they
are highly related industries.
My last change to
the overall system was in using the reference numbers to populate information
about the cities themselves. It follows
that cities with higher references are more economically powerful than those with
a lower count - they have more resources
and can bring more to bear to any economic dispute. So, since the urban population of the late
Middle Ages was something like 25% of the total population, I have calculated
the total population for each area based on population density (usually between
10-20 people per square mile), multiplied it by .25 and the multiplied it by
the ratio of the market's reference total compared with the region's reference
total to get the final population.
For example,
Reyjadin is the capital city of the Southern Kingdoms. Being a capital city, I've doubled its
population because of that added importance.
The total population for the Southern Kingdoms is approximately 683,000
people. Reyjadin controls 6 references
while the Southern Kingdoms as a whole controls 291 references. So, Reyjadin's popullation is
683,000*.25*2*(6/291)=7,041 people.
Population then defines a city's physical size (population/38850 square
miles) and the strength of its guard (population/150 employed guards). While obviously these latter two measures are
adjustable, it gives me a systematic way to approach any city.
While there's a lot to refine about this process (like using the total local references rather than references controlled by the market), it's definitely progress.
Also, a helpful resource to
intrepid worldbuilders.
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